Hi there everyone!! Welcome to my first post! I'm a new LC since March 29, 2005. Originally I started off doing Oprah's bootcamp and lost about 25 lbs there. Then I just plateaued out for 2 weeks which drove me NUTS! So after extensive searching on the net I found out about low carbing. I started doing Stillmans which is more strict than Atkins and got over my plateau.....and lost another 11 lbs!! Wooohoooo. I got into checking my ketones, (not so easy here in Egypt.....try going to a pharmacy and having him understand that u don't want to check your glucose....want to check ketones!!) But finally did it and bought a pkg of them. Yippee!! When I checked my urine I found out I was in ketosis!! But, oh oh....the stick turned dark purple.....is that good I thought? Back to the internet.....and I found out...Nope!! I was dehydrated!! So I've been sucking back the water like crazy.....and I'm back to losing weight again! I've been overweight for 14 yrs......and I don't know why, but I haven't really been bothered by it.....probably because I've always had a lot of energy and my weight never stopped me from doing anything. At one point in 1998 I was down to 186 lbs....but I wasn't trying to lose weight, I just had a busy schedule for 10 mos and the pounds melted off on their own. I've been married for 15 yrs and have 4 children, ranging from 13 to 2 yrs old. (They are all proud of me huffing and puffing it!) My motivation for losing weight may be weird, but it motivates me, which is important. I love my husband fiercely and one day it just popped in my head that maybe my husband looks at me and thinks to himself.....this is the mother of my children....rather than saying....this is MY WIFE! And it really irked me....I was at my highest weight ever at 248 lbs...and I said....THAT'S IT!! I guess I've been doing this almost for 2 mos......I feel great......and I'm just wishing to hurry up and lose the rest......In Egypt I take size 60 in clothes and yesterday I went and tried on a new outfit in size 52 and guess what???? It fit!! Wish me luck all....and I hope that I can make some supportive friends!!

Hello and welcome to the forum . Your progress so far is fantastic. Must be really cool living in Egypt. I hope to visit there some day. Its been a dream of mine to see they Pyramids. Good luck to you

Hi there Metal Mom,
Egypt is great! The only drawback for someone wanting to lose weight is there is a real scarcity in low fat and diet foods. No nutri bars, no low fat mayonnaise....diet yoghurt is one of the new things so that's okay. Well, I have some questions to ask about low carbing so I'm going to go and look for the appropriate forum to post in. Nice talking to you!!

Wecome SeekNfind!! Are you originally from Egypt?? I am looking forward to chatting with you!!!

I'm not originally from Egypt. I'm a canadian who just happened to marry an egyptian. We ended up going "home" to raise our girls here. I just love egypt although sometimes I have a hard time finding certain things. Thanks for welcoming me!

Hi, Krusty, and welcome to LC'ing and the forums.

I haven't corresponded with any LC'ers from Eygpt before, but I do understand what it's like to live in an area somewhat remote from LC products, and have heard the same complaint from people in New Zealand and Australia. Here's the cool thing about that, though--most of that LC stuff that you can't find is not going to help you lose weight--some of it might actually stall your loss.

Your best bet is what is sold in N. America as `outer aisle' stuff--the fresh produce, meat, and dairy stuff--a quick swoop aaround and you're done shopping.

Except for sweetener, I don't purchase any LC products on a regular basis--only exception I can think of is Atkin's barbeque sauce, best I've ever had, LC or no. Most of those products you can't get (lucky you) are nutritional wastes, expensive, and often trigger stalls and binges.

As for low-fat mayo, oooooohh that sounds icky. I think I had some, once, as I recall, and wanted to take my tongue out and wash it. Garg. No, go for the full-fat stuff, it's better for you.

Skip the nutri bars and have a lovely salad instead. Eat real.

I personally don't even bother with ketostix--I can tell when I'm in deep ketosis by my lovely morning mouth--and my pee smells different--sounds weird, don't it? but it's true. Guess it's no more weird than waving our lovely purple wands in our peestreams. <g>

I, too, am curious about your life in Cairo--that name is so evocative--minarets in the sunset--slow-moving Nile-are you deep city dwellers, or do you get out into the desert much?

A few suggestions: check out Triple Digits Club, and start a journal. Your progress is amazing. You'll find a lot of good sources here of information to help you stay healthy and to maintain your weight loss.

You didn't directly mention exercise, but said you're huffin' and puffin' (and I assume you don't mean anything illegal, or your kids woudn't be so proud.) Anyway, that sure helps--keep up the great work. I look forward to seeing you around on the forums.

Here in Egypt all the produce is super fresh and ready made or processed food isn't in high demand. So I rarely buy anything canned. The one product that I am buying is skim milk which I put in my coffee. At the beginning of me diet I stopped drinking coffee altogether but now I'm slowly adding it back in. I just love coffee. Sweetener is really common here, probably due to the fact that Egypt has a lot of diabetics. The new "hot" product on the market is the diet jam. Which to me, just doesn't sound right. I mean....it's jam, right? I live outside of Cairo, about a 30 min drive away. My city is somewhat reminiscent of Canada, in the way that the streets are wide, there are many trees and the blocks aren't so crowded. It's also good driving here, cause the streets aren't so crowded. Opposed to downtown Cairo where the traffic is always jammed. (diet or not!) The buildings are built back to back and the streets in many areas are unpaved. (off the main roads of course) As far as minarets, there are many beautiful mosques that I can see from my windows. I think rather than sunset minarets I would have to reply with dawn adhans. (adhan is call to prayer) At about 4 am every mosque plays the call to prayer and it's like an entire choir of voices overlapping one another from every direction, some loud and close and others faint and distant. All praising the glory of God and just sounding beautiful in the stillness of dawn. Then shortly you see all the faithful descending from their houses to go worship.......it's a sort of beauty that I love. Well...enough of that....about exercise. Since the beginning of my diet, I've been doing a 30 min workout with 15 minutes of it being really good cardio. Some nights I've also done a 2nd workout using two 4kg weights in my hands for about another 10 mins and continuing another 10 mins of cardio. Now since last week, I've been walking at 6:30 am and coming back at 7:30 am......and I've been walking fast. Then I've been doing a cardio workout at night. This morning for the first time, I jogged for part of my morning walk. (Hope no one saw me jogging!!) I'm just wondering when I can start adding fruit back into my diet cause peaches are in season and it's driving me nuts!!

Hi, i am so glad to find someone living in Egypt and lowcarbing, for me i started Atkins again and i hope it will work with me this time, i am Egyptian and live in Cairo and i have couple of questions, from where did you buy the ketones strips, i never expected to find them in Cairo so just tell me how to get them, also did you succeed in buying splenda here in cairo and from where, i'll be so glad if you can give me an answer for these questions, thanks a lot and can't wait to read your answers

Fantastic! You mean there is actually someone else here in Egypt low carbing with me? I haven't found Splenda but have been buying the little blue package of Diet-Sweet from the pharmacy. It's aspartame. Some ppl say aspartame causes stalls but so far I'm okay. The ketostix I got from the pharmacy - they are made by accu-check which is the company that makes the glucose monitors. They had a new big display at my pharmacy. I paid $34 LE for 50 of them. I also found out that there is a company that makes them, but the masri version for around $15 LE....but every pharmacy I ask says they are out of stock. They show me the stix for glucose but don't have the ketones. I live in Asher min Ramadan. Maybe to start off your dieting you should try the meat and egg fast for 3 days. Can't wait to read your next post.

Thanks for the information, i live in Nasr city (madinet nasr) and i work as electrical engineer, as i told you i started atkins "again" and now i am keeping my carb net intake below 20 grams per day (induction phase), i expect that the induction phase will last longer than two weeks with me.
So i'm thinking of going to Ezaby pharmacy and ask for Ketostix right? i hope i'll find them, you know it is a bit hard to lowcarb here in Cairo, the lowcarbing approach is something they still don't know about, you cannot find lowcarb products at super makets, but i am watching the ingredients carefully.
For Splenda as i know it is the best one, i know that there is a lot of aspartame in the market, but i don't know whether it will cause stall for me or not.
I am glad to have a pal in Cairo to share with about that thing.....
So waiting for your next post
By the way i tried using the "My P.L.A.N" link and it is really good

As far as low carb products, I've heard that they really aren't worth it anyways. Concerning the splenda...I haven't seen it...but did see diet sugar by Isis. It says that it's sugar extracted from fruit. I don't know if that would be any good. I actually have cut out the sugar in my tea and nescafe now. It isn't so bad. If you are still hungry on the low carb diet...just add more protein. Oh yeah....I asked for the "sha-right glucose wa ketones" when I asked for the ketostix. I wish you all the best. Are you exercising?

Thanks for the information, as far as i know sugar extracted from fruit like Isis one is not allowed on Atkins diet, for me i also cut all the sugar from my tea and coffee, i am drinking decaf Gold nescafe, and limiting my tea intake to one cup per day... if any. Regarding exercising, you know i used to workout all my life although i was always overweight, even when i lived in the states for like 3 years, i joined a gym there and used to go mostly, my weight always was playing you know YoYo, i tried several diets but know i am getting comfortable with Atkins, i am thinking of as way of life, and for this fresh start, i havn't started exercising yet, may be next week or so, wish me luck. By the way do you have any idea about he vitamins, supplements or essential fatty acids (flaxseeds or similar) that we should use on Atkins, i mean here in Egypt??

Exercise will really speed up the weight loss. Try doing something at home. You don't really have to go to a gym. Funny enough, I've never bought the caffeine free nescafe Gold....maybe I should start. I'm taking the Vitona Energy multivitamin...I think it costs $12 LE for the package or maybe the shareet, I don't remember. For awhile I was taking an appetite suppressant called, "diet max" which is sibutramine. It worked really well and helped me start off my diet. But I've since stopped that. 1 shareet for $18 LE. I've been thinking about flaxseed, but I don't know what it's called in Arabic. I got the dictionary and it's not in there. Do you have any ideas? As far as oils....there are a whole line of natural oils that I've seen at Shareef. They've got lettuce oil, almond oil, watercress, sesame...whatever, you name it. If any of those interest you. I keep buying the sesame oil to use in my chinese stir fry. All the best!

I looked in my english/arabic dictionary under flaxseed. It's called, "bizr al Ketaan". I remember my attar showing it to me once, so I went today and asked. It costs $40 LE per kg. I bought $2 LE worth to start with. Now to look up recipes!

I thought that there is some capsules or products that contain flaxseed at the pharmacy, but you said at el attar, so what is the deal do we have like swallow couple of them each day or what, i really don't know, i take one tablest of multvitamine supravit a day, the box is 14 LE, but you know compared to international multivitamins this one is very less in the ingrediants, i am thinking of taking 2 per day.
also another essential fatty acids is olive oil and fatty fish or code liver oil, i think this is the correct spelling, the idea is how to manage all such supplements in cairo, i like your way of searching like going to Attar and that stuff, i never thought of that.
tommorrow is my scale day, i hope i have achieved something this week, wish me luck